So, Christy just left. Well, I suppose she's technically in the city, considering that her plane leaves at 6 but she's in the fort that is the airport. I'm sure it'll sink in tomorrow or the next day that is she is gone, GONE, GONE! It's alright I suppose. She may be coming back to visit for Spring break, which isn't long from now. And soon after that, she will graduate and return and no more going away for long periods.
Kaile and Erin are still here. Kaile's at a BBQ with her mom and dad (I suppose that she should visit them SOMETIME). Erin is required to spend the night with her family, so she just dropped me off at the house. It was kind of funny because when I got back from dropping Christy off, and Erin had already driven away to go home, I find the front door locked. I see my mom's car is gone. Noire is at the front door with me. And no one is answering. My dad is not the best about answering the phone or door. So, I considered for a moment sitting on the front porch until my mom got back and using it as a nice guilt trip to tuck away for later. But, it happened to be the ONE time I didn't take my bag with me (which has all my writing instruments in it) and there's only so many pictures one can take of christmas scenery in Cali. And, it will be getting dark very soon. It already is that grey-blue tinge that makes me feel tired/depressed. Luckily, Dad answered the door after a few more minutes of knocking. Even then, he said he answered it because of the dogs, not because of the knocking.
Yesterday, we had such a great time! One of the things Kaile and I were discussing yesterday was that unlike with other people that one knows from high school, when we four get together, we don't reminisce about the past (which one can only do so much). It's like we were never apart. That's part of the reason it's so hard whenever one of us leaves. Because, when they're here, it's like they never left. It feels so natural. And thus when one is back in that feeling and one realize they're going to leave again, it makes one really sad. However, that helps when we can only all meet for short periods of time recently. Because it takes no time for us to get back int the groove.
Erin came over yesterday before 4 in the afternoon to help set up the tea. Shortly afterwards, Kaile showed up. Here's a picture of her walking in the door. Everyone always laughs when they see the picture because it's such a ubiquitous image of Kaile walking in.
And then Christy showed off a dress she's considering wearing for one of the events for her nursing graduation.
Then we (Erin, Kaile, Christy, Siobhan, and I) sat down for a proper tea. Erin made all kinds of great stuff. She and I hadn't eaten all day. It was SO good. Pride and Prejudice (A&E BBC version) soundtrack played in the background.
Here are some pics of us together at the tea.
Then we opened gifts. Look at the beautiful scarf Kaile embroidered for me! It has my name and it has a red butterfly that's a direct reference to a scene in my most recent novel.
I'm even wearing it right now.
Here are some pics from the present opening.
A few hours later, we had a wonderful turkey dinner! It was so good. The company was great, as well.
Then, we drove over to Erin's to get Loaded Questions. We all played that until Midnight. I won. Go me. Noire was so happy to see Kaile that she snuggled up to her the whole time. Here's some pics (we have vid media from yesterday too which is great including immitations of English train announcers by Erin but I'll post those later):
Then that night before going to bed, Kaile and I watched The Crying Game.
It was a very busy day. Today Christy left and Jason's birthday party/new years party is tonight and we're about to be leaving for that. Kaile should arrive here any minute to go over to that. There should be a LOT of people there. It goes until after midnight but I don't think I will be staying that long. I'll probably be party-ed out pretty soon and need a break. That's all for now. I'll make proper posts with the funny vids later. Probably after all this craziness is over, I'll do a few posts with each dedicated to each event. They really did each need a post but so busy. I hope you all have a great new year!
What is one of your addictions?
Submitted by Paperheart.
Reading.
In this case, specifically fanfiction.
fanfiction sites (warning: some may have adult material. Do not read adult material if under legal age. Click at own risk):
Slashy Harry Potter with interesting pairings
Very good site to read some quality Harry Potter fanfic
Good Labyrinth Archive from a Good Labyrinth fanfic Author
Best LOTR fanfic. Amazing quality.
More Adult LOTR fanfic. The stuff I'd recommend would be by Eresse
Great fanfic writer website for true tolkienites
Probably my favorite Earth: Final Conflict fanfiction
Good Stargate fanfic (slash-ish) by a personal friend of mine.
Very good Star Trek fanfic writer. She also has Star Wars here
One of my favorite authors - Macedon. He wrote the best Vulcan characters I've ever read.
Best archive for Sarek/Amanda (spock's parents) fanfic.
Wonderful sequal to the Delicate Balance of In-between (Babylon 5)
Good Babylon 5 fanfic archive. Best for that show that I've come across
And of course a link to my own account through the infamous Fanfiction.net
Wow, they actually hanged him. I've been following the news so I knew of his sentence but it's still strange to think that he was hanged. I'm not sure what I think of his execution. He was a bad man and he did many bad things even to his own people. But my feelings remain mixed on the US's involvement in all of this.
So, life should be pretty busy the next few days (as if it hasn't been so far! Psh!). Here's a little glimpse at my general schedule.
Saturday (30th): Kaile arrives in California! Since we missed the actual date of her birthday, we'll be having a bit of a party for her arrival/birthday and Christy's leavetaking. It'll be so great to have us all together. Kaile will be coming over to my house at 4 for the tea that Erin shall be preparing for before dinner. Erin just got back from her semester in London and so has inside knowledge of how to throw a good tea. We all love tea so we're definitely looking forward to that. At 6, we will be having a turkey dinner. Yummy. After that, we'll probably be having a baked creation from Christy for dessert! It's going to be so much fun. Perhaps we'll play some board games too. Maybe I should suggest for Erin to bring over Loaded Questions (if it's at her house and not mine?). I'm sure Siobhan will have us at least playing either Spin Uno or Boxes and Briefs. There'll definitely be much talk about Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife ( the book Christy got Erin and Kaile for Christmas. Classic smut.) and torches of love. I really should be in bed by now with all this planned, huh?
Sunday (31st): Christy leaves. Cue great dramatics from me.
Monday (1st, New Years): My brother's birthday. Later that evening, Erin and I will be driving miss Kaile back up so she can catch her flight Tuesday morning.
Tuesday (2nd): Kaile flies out and Erin and I will drive back from dropping her off.
Should be a busy few days. I really should be asleep. In that time, I'd also be happy if I finished another scene in my novel. I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere.
Video: Show us some great animation.
How did you find out the secret behind Santa Claus?
Submitted by Carinish.
What secret?
Oh I always knew he took the cookies. Duh. Everyone knows that.
Today, I was checking an author's livejournal to see if she had updated any of her stories. She had just left a message for some other livejournal people. One of which, she spoke of reading her latest part of her story. I really hold this particular author in high esteem for different qualities of her writing. For a few things, I even read her work to see how I can improve myself in those areas. Mainly eroticism, handling of time, matured relationships (I swear to god, she's really the only author I've read who doesn't marry people off in the end and put 'happily ever after.' People get married like 1/4th of the way through in some of them. And them married is at least as interesting as them unmarried.), and happy endings. So, I was intrigued to see the work of this person that she read.
Since I wanted to read some of this other author's work, I went back in her livejournal archives to find the earliest post to her story. At the beginning of which, I found this post she made. It was entitled On The Senseless Killings of Female Characters . . . by otherwise brilliant authors.
It's a short but rather thought-provoking post. Go read it. Here are a few quotes:
This is what our various belief systems convince us of through narrative after compelling narrative: that victory comes at great expense. I do not doubt the veracity of this. I simply wonder why the collateral damage always has to be a woman.
Why do so-called 'pure' female love interests always have to die? Is the hero more of a man because the woman he loves is dead? Is that what passes for femininity/masculinity these days? Is that then implying that men can only be heroes without the support of a woman (or better yet, an equal partner), that the true hero rides alone, beholden to nothing save the beast that cleaved out his heart? Or that a woman's place is as a symbol (not even a concept or an idea), a ready sacrifice (insert your own Renaissance-definition of 'dying' joke here), an ephemeral presence that has no place in the action of the plot save in absentia?
It has occured to me, as a writer who enjoys slash fanfiction, that legions of women have now cut themselves out of the story entirely, preferring that the men interact with themselves on every level, be it social, combatative, romantic or sexual (of course, if you've dabbled in some Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, you know this is but a modern innovation on a classic formula). Slash fanfic is another arena where the archetype of the questing male is embraced, save that this time the men are questing towards each other. Is this implying that the ultimate fulfillment for a man of valor is a mirror image of himself (narcissism as eroticism, anyone?)? That female authors have even been taught to marginalize their own representations in their own fictional narratives, because, ultimately, the phallus is all?
This intrigued me for many reasons. Firstly as an author, I'm always intrigued by the philosophy/reality of literature and writing. Another of which is because I read slash. But lots of the relationships portrayed in a great deal of slash, I do not agree with. Of course, that holds true for the great majority of all fanfiction created. Probably because most of the fanfiction published is the equivalent of doodling. But when slash relationships are created wrong it appears mainly because they are mostly idealized fantasies of women scared of female sexuality. But, even when the relationships being portrayed have a truth to them or are greater than that, I am worried by how almost 98% (gathered from Top Of My Head Statistics) of Slash fanfiction is written by women. There appears to be many reasons for this that I have seen. As I've said before, some appear to be afraid of female sexuality (namely their own). Others appear to not wish to see their fantasy beau in a relationship with a female character, even if they create her. Some seem almost to enjoy it in a sadistic way, wanting to see a man get pushed down and screwed. Then there's the thrill of the slightly taboo along with the safety of not being gay men themselves. So they can have this distanced dalliance with the forbidden or frowned upon. Safe rebellion . . . Etc. (And that's not even going into the fact that so much damn slash art portrays these men as looking very androgenous if not female.) But there are also people who write in it because they simply like the dynamic. Or they like exploring such characterizations. I'm most certainly NOT saying that slash is filled with sickos afraid of their own sexuality. Remember, I read and enjoy slash. Most of my favorite fanfictions that I'd recommend others to read is slash. This post is merely talking about some of the pitfalls of literature (which I group fanfiction into when talking generally) and the death or absense of female characters.
Definitely thought provoking. I'd say to read the original post. What do you think?
Some pics to show what I was talking about, when I said that a great deal of slash fan art portrays the men looking very androgenous if not female. Especially in their jawlines. Some of it has to do with anime. But that's a whole nother thing that's very much the same thing:
Or how about we go through some of the most popular movies or literature and count main female characters to main male characters. And that's not even with having to make the female character be THE main character. Just be one of them. Often, the female to male ratio is worse in things that have a main female character because they believe that the other main characters have to balance out the female presense. And if we dare write something with even equal representation of a female presense it's a chick flick or chick lit. That's why I so dislike the use of those words. It's demeaning, patronizing . . . It's not cute.
Yesterday, we had a rather fun and eventful day. In the morning, Christy and I took Siobhan bowling. We used a bumper lane. Siobhan maintained that she'd never bowled before. I maintained that she had. We played two games. I was dubbed the Queen of Spares (mainly by my own suggestion, but I always have to be the creative voice. *Smirk*) Christy had a despicable amount of strikes. Including when she was showing Siobhan how to bowl from between the legs. That was just wrong. But so funny. Here's a vid of Siobhan bowling (we took four, two of Siobhan, two of Christy. They are in the collection):
We took some fun pics. I really like these pictures with Christy and Siobhan (only can be seen if you are in my neighborhood) though they are from unconventional angles.
Then Siobhan took a pic of me with Christy, which I've already posted on Vox.
Then Christy took a couple of pics with me and Siobhan. Siobhan seems to have inherited my mother's childhood love of making faces at the camera.
Here's a great pic of Siobhan bowling, in motion:
And then, later that night. Erin came over and we four sat down to try to make a nativity scene out of Fondant to put on top of the Christmas cake Christy is going to bake. We had a few sets of my mother's nativity scenes in the middle for inspiration. Fondant is made out of melted marshmellows and powdered sugar. Then it's set out in plastic wrap for a while (Christy made the fondant the night before.) It's hard to get the fondant to take color after it's been set out. So, you have to add the dye to the fondant while you're making it. So, we had several different colored blobs of fondant set out in the middle with the various nativity scene characters. With crisco'd place mats and gathered utensils, we set to work. Christy was the only one of us with experience with fondant. It was playing with homemade play dough.
Here are some pics to set the scene:
It was fun. Erin was tired from the long day so she kind of got a little bored towards the end. Christy made some great figures that looked like a Magi Hagrid and a Magi Mr. Favolo (our old Latin Teacher from HS). It turns out I'm fairly decent at crafting things from fondant. Who knew! It was so much fun. Here is a picture of the things I made (since this is my Vox, I'm allowed to pay special attention to my work):
Mary was my first figure I had ever made from Fondant. I didn't want to make her plainly out of fondant because that would be a big clump of Fondant to make her body. So for the main girth of her body form, I used a small little bottle. Joseph was my second figure. His body is manipulated around a similar bottle. At first, I was a little daunted by how to make him look male but then I remembered, "He has a beard! Yea!" So that helped. But I'm happy with how male he came out looking. I was also a little sad when I was watching Christy create the colors of Fondant because the only skin color seemed to be this beautiful peach white. But then I found this perfect tan flesh color. So, I was able to make a proper nativity. Oh and they have little cut off toothpicks holding their heads on.
Then we took Erin home. When we came back, I made my baby Jesus. He's made purely out of fondant. At first, I was a little daunted because how do I make him look like a baby but not look overly simple? And I was wondering how to best do the swaddling. Finally, I decided to go with creating a simple roll of fondant that would make the figure of Jesus' body. Then I cut out a square of white fondant and folded it like I would a receiving blanket with a baby (like I used to be a pro at when Siobhan was a baby.) Then I wrapped it around the form like I would a baby. But since the white had a pinkish tone to it, I decided he would look too girly. So I added some other hints of different colors of cloth underneath. Then I fashioned the facial features. For a moment, I had to think about how to do baby hair. That's hard because it can't be thick like an adult. Luckily, I planned to make Jesus have black hair like Mary and Joseph and babies with black hair look right when they have more hair. Blonde babies really don't have hair when they're that young. So I rolled little pieces of hair and with my little pick tried to make it look appropriate. And I also made a little clenched baby hand that's visible. It's too bad you can't see the detail of that in the pic. It's a perfect little baby fist. So cute. Then I created a manger. We plan to dye some coconut shavings yellow and use that for straw when we set all the figures on the cake.
Here's some pics of my Baby Jesus fondant figure:
I don't think the pics do Fondant baby Jesus justice. But it's hard to get the little detail on the camera.
Then I tried to make a sheep. I'm not as proud of that. I don't have much experience with sheep. And I was really tired.
It was so much fun!
Here are the Collections of photos (and bowling vid) from both the bowling and fondant fun! Click on them to see the collections of pics and/or vid:
How do you take your tea or coffee?
Submitted by Vasquez.
Favorite Coffee: Starbuck's Decaf hot White Chocolate Mocha
Tea: I love all tea, really. The only tea I have ever not enjoyed was filled with fake sugar. It was horrible. Not only was it the only tea I was unable to enjoy, but I actually had to dump it out in the gutter. Seriously. It was horrible.